their citizens are kept away from the from the voting booth by rules that are meant to keep away a certain segment of the population in less than a month americans head to the polls to elect a president boll everyone's vote be counted r t looks at the double standards taking place around the country when it comes to denying voters their right to cast their ballots. and there were fireworks during last night's vice presidential debate between joe biden and paul ryan but when it came to the topic of iran and the nuclear weapons how far apart are these two parties and which party is more

likely to start another war in the middle east will question more. plus in god we trust is printed on the money here in the u.s. and politicians often tell that america was founded on christian values but it appears we are becoming a less christian nation a look at the growing number of people who are turning away from organized religion . it's friday october twelfth four pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r.t. . all right leading the news this hour we are team minus twenty five days until the november presidential elections and the candidate who is leading the race depends on who you ask some polls put president obama up by a few points other show mitt romney edging ahead and some indicate that the two men are virtually neck and neck now this have pundits declaring that this election

could could come down to a photo finish so this is further proof that each and every vote counts now we've already seen some of the interesting tactics coming out on part of the democrats and republicans in terms of changing the voting system you could call it a way to level the playing field when it comes to voter fraud or a ploy to sway the election the problem is that each state sometimes each individual county has a different set of rules and while those double standards might not guarantee a winner there sure creating a lot of confusion and possibly widening the margin for error are to correspondent on a socket charkha tells us more. you elected me to tell you the truth honesty is the best policy while maybe not in u.s. elections two words define why people hate america double standard on everything this presidential election season these two words are back in full swing the basic definition of a double standard is a rule or principle unfairly applied in different ways to different people or

groups let's find out if this is relevant to the us election system respecting every single vote is key in a democracy yet voter suppression is alive and well in the us given the way that citizens are kept away from the from the voting booths by rules that are meant to keep away a certain segment of the population we have a lot of frankly criticizing other countries for the way they run their democracy from questionable voter id regulations to shortened early voting time slots to gerrymandering or redrawing congressional district lines to favor certain parties laws affecting voters rights are passed left and right and vary state by state do you have an eric holder this video shows how easy it is to attempt to steal attorney general eric holder's vote when an idea is not required actually forgot might be any answer yet places that do ask for a government issued photo id can affect over ten percent of americans that simply

don't have one there is an attempt to prevent large numbers of people from actually exercising the ballot election monitors usually serve the purpose of keeping track of and discrepancies and while the us likes to keep a close eye on the way elections are handled abroad we have the right to monitor other people's elections of course and if they don't do it then clearly they're cheating that's not democracy it's rigged it's a dictatorship what the hell the need for monitors at home is vastly undermined when you're looking at an election where the votes are counted in public. that's the kind of. election that it's possible to observe it really is virtually no opportunity for international observation but the same goes for domestic observers even the carter center which goes on and does the great we're monitoring elections brought refuses to monitor us elections on the grounds it don't meet the basic

standards of integrity when election ideals are not met elsewhere criticism runs rampant elections in venezuela elections in iran elections in russia the press will go to town on any sign that the outcome was fixed you know regardless of whether the evidence is sound just go crazy and while nitpicking abroad is all the rage the elephant in the room remains unnoticed at home i promise you that the evidence that they use to scream and yell about the outcome in those countries is usually a whole lot weaker than the evidence of election theft in this country the good news not all of the hypocrisy goes unnoticed our policymakers and to a great extent our media and and trickle down to the american people have literally the literally think that the rest of the world is stupid that they don't see it that everybody naturally have to admit you know admire us that we're great and it's not the case well obvious flaws are met with the deaf ear year in and year out

a flawed election process continues to be the first vote cast in the u.s. and if the hitcher cannot party new york. all right last night's vice presidential debate certainly did not disappoint viewers president obama released his attack dog of the v.p. joe biden on representative paul ryan he laughed mocked and interrupted his way through the debate while adding context to president obama's campaign promises and between all the mudslinging real substance came out of the discussion the moderator a.b.c. news reporter martha raddatz called iran the biggest national security threat to our nation. we've had it's war to iran i'd actually like to move to iran because there's really no bigger national security this country is facing now joe biden said the u.s. is doing everything it can to prevent war with the country paul ryan said that the obama administration isn't doing enough when governor romney was asked about it he said we've got to keep these sanctions when you say well you're talking about doing

more what do you you're going to go to war is that what you want to do we want to prevent war. interesting things how they're going to prevent war how they're going to promote war they say there's nothing more of that we say we should do than what we've already done and i was in a conference call with the with the president or with him talking to bibi for well over an hour and. stark relief in detail what was going on this is a bunch of stuff but for all the substance there was one thing that never came out the elephant in the room other than paul ryan of course and considering joe biden's reputation we thought he would spill the beans he does have a few tongue slips here and there has paul ryan so adequately pointed out i think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don't come out of your mouth the right way. but joe biden watched his tongue to this day no official has ever confirmed that israel has nuclear capabilities despite it being an open secret

joining me now to discuss this and help figure out which candidate is more likely to get us into yet another war in the middle east is our to arabic correspondent. hi there we've got a lot to talk about let's start covering the v.p. debate so these two men two very different opinions of what's going on in the middle east and more specifically the situation with iran what was your to take of the debate last night and specifically the middle east part well a lot of people see a lot of differences in what was going on yesterday in what biden said versus what ryan said. people in the arab world see a lot of similarities we don't see the difference as a lot of people see there because we have seen the same point policy in the arab world towards the arab world from both republican and democrat administrations so a lot of it everyone knows especially in the arab world especially in the muslim world that this is just for public consumption during the elections when it comes to the real time both administrations whether republican or democrat they will

eventually do the same thing whatever serves the interest of basically the united states and its allies and what is it that serves the interest of the united states and its allies at this point obviously there president obama is saying that these sanctions on the most crippling there with the latest round of sanctions he passed this week are the harshest that we've ever seen but paul ryan is just saying that's not enough so what is in the u.s. interest at this point or what they think is in their interest we don't know if it's for sure in their interest because what we've seen year after year is that this doesn't really serve the interests of the u.s. we've seen more hatred towards the u.s. in the previous years then in the history of the us all together. the difference really between what paul ryan was talking about in terms of iran and what joe biden was talking about but is it really that big paul ryan was talking about more sanctions was talking about convincing that i had a lot to change their minds how is he going to do that other than talking to

a lot to convince them to change their minds and that's exactly what this administration is doing and when joe biden asked him if you wanted to go to war he very openly said no we don't want to go to war so basically they don't have anything else on the table other than to talk to iran try to convince them not to go ahead with their enrichment program and one of the things that joe biden does say is we are doing the best that we can if you have any other ideas go ahead and present them the argument could be made that. the ideas weren't. present presented he doesn't have anything else to say there is nothing else on the table or actually that he could present on the table because these sanctions are the most crippling sanctions in the history of the us imposed on a country and we've seen the impact of those sanctions on iran so far with its import of oil with. with its. value of its karen

c. we've seen what these sanctions are doing i don't know what else the republicans would like to do in terms of how to handle the iran issue and rima we have talked about that with the fact that sanctions have on the people versus the fact that sanctions have on the iranian government before but i do want to bring it up again so we do know that the reality is being devalued quite substantially because of these economic sanctions the u.s. is saying that this is proof that these sanctions are working and you have the ayatollah saying that you should not be celebrating these sanctions and you should not be appreciating or the devaluation of this currency can you talk about that a little bit of history tells us that sanctions where never a problem to governments sanctions are a problem to the people and we've seen that in iraq we've seen that in other cases and now we see it in iran who are suffering from these sanctions other than the sanctions other than the people and everyone knows that what they're trying to do is to convince the people to google to take to the streets to protest their

economic poor economic situation that's the only way that these sanctions can affect the governments there is no direct. or maybe there is a little bit of direct impact of those sanctions on the government those sanctions really affect the people and everyone knows that and iraq is just the perfect example for this and let's talk about the elephant in the room i brought it up a little bit when i was introducing this segment we're talking of course about israel and its open secret that may or may not have nuclear weapons how big of a game changer will this be if we did in fact find out officially that israel has nuclear weapons or doesn't change anything at this point well. in i believe it was two thousand and six when one of the israeli officials by mistake said. how do you talk about iran having a nuclear program and they quit that with france the united states and israel that's an acknowledgement in

a lot of people say that's an acknowledgement that israel does have a nuclear weapon israel does not talk about it it maintains a policy of. does not want to talk about it but it's an open secret as you said everyone knows everyone talks about it while some people would not want to talk about it for their own reasons on a lot of people say that this has to do with the fact that they do not want the arabs racing towards nuclear bombs nuclear capabilities if they keep talking or if they ever talk about the israeli capabilities then that's probably the biggest reason that they don't want to talk about it but everyone knows and last night the moderator martha raddatz did call iran the biggest national security threat that the u.s. faces today do you see that as the case says who she said that a lot of people don't see it that way if you. if iran was the threat

to the us people would want to go to war with iran take the poll sixty seven percent of the people say they do not want to go to yet another war in the middle east or anywhere in the world that just tells you how people view whether it's iran or any other threat or created threat just for the sake of this elections everyone knows that this is just rhetoric during the elections to serve the candidates basically for them for political gains and we do know right now that the gallup actually did take a poll of the international polls when it comes to what the presidential debate here in the u.s. is playing out and what they saw is an overwhelming majority of the international community supports president obama what you're seeing is that president obama is receiving eighty one percent of the international vote while mitt romney is only getting one hundred percent of the international vote so let me quickly ask you this question remain we only have about thirty seconds left which candidate is more

likely to lead us into a war with iran we don't know what we've seen obama take servicemen to hazards way in different parts of the world of history tells us that republicans . had their reason sometimes not to go to wars but also tells us that they're so quick. you know pressing that red button and saying we're going to war what people in the arab world simply like obama because of a lot of other reasons not that do not have to do with. you know him wanting to go to war or not a lot of it has to do with face recognition a lot of it has to do with romney's public statements about the arab world we're going to have to live in a as i watch the situation carol closely as it unfolds that was. r.t. arab correspondent thank you so much for your opinions. well what we saw play out

last night was a sparring of words between two catholics and how appropriate that last night's few minutes the last few minutes of last night were dedicated to religion and more specifically the candidates stances on abortion now we all know about the separation between church and state but more times than not religion does come into the discussion is selected mitt romney would be the first mormon president the united states has ever had meanwhile president obama's religious affiliation has come under fire as no president has ever had before and yet the times are changing the number of americans who say they have no religious affiliation has swelled in recent years to one in five americans so why are people losing faith in religious institutions the lord harshness of the resident dot net hit the streets of new york city to find out why. a new pew poll indicated one in five americans has no religion and more and more

americans are becoming atheists is america losing its religion and if so why this week let's talk about that i think as we get smarter we realize all the religions are the same you look at each different book every book has a similar story. it's all the same we're on one planet there should be one war doesn't matter if you're in pakistan or new jersey what i see more people that maybe keep to themselves i mean you could be religious without going to a sanctuary or something along the perception it's probably changed a little bit yeah it's interesting because a lot of people supposedly still believe in a god or the spiritual being but not necessarily of religion because this is two different things religion is something that people create and something that we carry turn on my. spirit maybe something like that so maybe we need. really

define what our religions are to match our spirituality of course i just got baptized last year everybody has their own way of coming to their beliefs but for us it was just you know we're getting older and you know we're getting closer to those they say the pearly gates but what we agree was was insurance you got baptized for insurance purposes. i believe what you want to believe but don't force it on other people or use it for you know things that hurt other people is that what it is is that people see the organized religion as something detrimental to other people well i'm speaking i guess for mostly myself here but you know that's what makes sense to me yeah when you see wars being waged in the name of religion it makes you think yes information. that you're able to get. and quickly is pervasive. so the more information we have the less religious we become well the more the more you can sort of investigate things and the more you can

develop your own ideas think. there is so it's less about religion per se and more about in the institutionalized ideas well i think i think what it means is that you get to make up your own mind about your religion or whatever you decide religion to be the bottom line is american seem to be losing their faith in organized religion which might be less of a sign of their waning spirituality and more of an indication that it might be time to reorganize. so there's a lot of reasons this could be happening and no matter what you might believe religion does have a tangible social political and economic impact on the u.s. socially for legend defiance moral rights and wrongs and draws the line when it comes to human decency politically the people who say they have no religious affiliation tend to sway to the left was over seventy five percent of people were.

voting for president obama in the last election they tend to be more accepting of abortion and gay marriage economically the father of modern sociology max weber drew the connection between the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism mark chapter twelve or seventeen the new testament speaks about money and taxes when jesus says give to caesar what belongs to caesar and to god what belongs to god islam to this day outlaws charging interest buddhism instructs its followers to reject the desire for material possessions so here to discuss with me the reason why americans are losing their faith and the potential implications that this could have on the country is david silverman president of american atheists hi there david if you want to start off talking about the in religious americans is this a generational thing or or is it something else. well it's more than a generational thing although the generation certainly has to do with it the growth of secularism in america is really centered on the young people over thirty percent

of the young people are on affiliated with religion now what you were talking about before was that people are somewhat still religious even though they're calling themselves on affiliated now it's partially true what we're also seeing in america is a rise in atheism and that is coming from two parts first of all people are becoming atheist more and more because they're studying religion and second because of the stigma against atheism is is being less and people are coming out as atheists so people who used to define themselves as religious but were really atheists are now having the courage to come out and call themselves non-religious people and we think that trend is going to continue because we think it's the natural progression of learning and the natural progression of conversation about religion and some critics might say that religion is antiquated thoughts about abortion gay rights

etc most people simply don't agree with that opinion so my question to you is simple does religion have a place in the twenty first century. no it does not religion hasn't had a place for some time but now that we're looking at the twenty first century now that we know that there is i mean this is the twenty first century we know there's no invisible man in the sky we do know this now we know this just as well as we know that there is no santa claus and people are finally figuring this out they're learning they're talking they're hearing they're picking up their bibles and actually reading it which is something that they haven't done before and that makes atheists in and of itself as we move on into the rest of this century we're going to see a continued growth in the disaffiliate from organized religions because people are realizing that organized religion is totally useless but what i mean is that peter let's so let's look at the a social impacts that religion has i mean it does strengthen communities and bring

them together to clean up parks and run soup kitchens friend sense so we can't argue that no good comes from a listen it also instills values in people that help guide their moral compass right. no i would say no to both of those questions it provides a medium for people to do good yes it does but without that medium people still do good if you look at secular democracies like norway sweden denmark there's plenty of good solid community and charity work going on there without the need for religion and as far as the application of moral codes no what religion does is it takes credit for a person's individual moral moral judgments. a good person and another person might say they're a good person because god tells them to be a good person we're both good people religion simply takes the credit for you being a good person but most people are good without god. that's certainly are one of the atheists so tell me what atheism has to offer for us because religion they say.

not only impacts the the social lives of people but also impacts the economics of the u.s. and there's been multiple studies saying that that's religion does have a direct tangible effect on the economy expression in developing nations can you talk about that well sure religion has the effect because it's given the opportunity to have an effect it's not the only thing that has an effect and when you look at the way religion works in america i mean you mention mitt romney being the first mormon president potentially being the first mormon president the mormon church just spent twenty million dollars to stop other people from getting married they spent their own money to enforce their religious beliefs on non mormons we find this repugnant we find this disgusting and no this is not useful and yes it is immoral so what we're seeing here is taking credit for being for bringing in good morals while totally disassociating itself from the responsibility that it has of

letting people live their own lives people in america don't want religions telling them other people's religions telling them what they're more. these are we'll make our own moral decisions and that's what atheism brings to the table you're already making your own moral decisions with atheism you get to take credit for it and the responsibility and david let's talk about it and see it since you did go ahead and bring out mitt romney let's talk about religion and politics president obama is a christian mitt romney is a mormon how does their religion affect their leadership abilities and that's the big question that we would like to see answered we don't really care about what religion they profess i don't really care that mitt romney is a mormon i care that mitt romney has not spoken against the mormon church is disgusting infringement on public life in california i don't really care about the fact that president obama is a christian i do care about the fact that he has left the faith based initiatives

intact which funnel federal money to mostly christian churches what we care about is how they let their religion usurped their authority or usurp their allegiance rather to the constitution of the united states that's a problem it's not about being religious it's whether or not your religion takes a higher place in your mind to the country at large and that's really where we are out of time but i just want to ask you really quickly yes or no is there such a thing as separation between church and state these days. yes but not very much in america all right david so norman president of the american atheists thank you so much for your opinion sir thank you very much you have a great day all right capital account is up next on our t.v. let's check in with laura lister to see what's on today's agenda hey there lauren i met again you know we've done many stories on this show talking about how trading a lot of it really doesn't go on on the new york stock exchange floor anymore due to algorithmic trading the increase in high frequency trading much of that trading

has been moved off of the floor done electronically done by by algorithms by computer programs and in light of the v.p. presidential or the vice presidential debate last night we're going to talk about if a similar analogous. thing has happened with political campaigning i guess what you could call algorithmic campaigning to be a little creative we have author of the book victory lab he's written a book all about this he's going to be on the show to talk about it and we'll also talk about the e.u. they got the nobel prize what is going on with that are there any ulterior motives by federalists on the nobel committee we'll talk about that to meghan in just a couple of minutes that's coming up next and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com r.t. america you can also follow our website at r.t. dot com slash usa they're going to find a bunch of stories that we just didn't have time to get to on air you can also

follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez and stick around for the next hour we've got a great segment talking about facts of social sports teams and sports stadiums on the economy so stick around that's coming up in a half an hour. culture is the same much as commercial comes on to. the republicans and democrats alike will be american people to become a stark choice before them in this election year is this really the case. the admission is. going to take three months for charges. to make mincemeat. three. priests old sleeve. video for your media

projects a free media oh god r.t. dot com. coming up. the a.